Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three.Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three.(From a Miniature.)
Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three.(From a Miniature.)
With a child so apt it is not surprising that wefind no record of a governess or tutor during these early years—that is, so far as general education was concerned; but there was one item of special education which the fond papa did insist upon, an insistence which was the cause of much grief to and some disobedience from the spoilt girl.
“How my father, who certainly never knew the tune of ‘God save the King’ from that of the other national air, ‘Rule, Britannia,’ came to take into his head so strong a fancy to make me an accomplished musician I could never rightly understand, but that such a fancy did possess him I found to my sorrow! From the day I was five years old, he stuck me up to the piano, and, although teacher after teacher had discovered that I had neither ear, nor taste, nor application, he continued, fully bent upon my learning it.”
Nevertheless, she did not learn it and, as we shall see later, this fixed idea of her father’s gave place to another equally futile.
Chief of her playmates at this time was William Harness, the son of her mother’s trustee. He would be brought over from Wickham in the morning, and after a day of romps, be taken back in his father’s carriage late in the afternoon. Although two years the junior of Mary, William was her constant and boon companion, and remained to be her friend and counsellor throughlife, although his counsels were, at times, very wilfully disregarded.
Mutually genial of temperament, they sympathized with each other’s tastes and pursuits, particularly as these related to Literature and the Drama. On one point only did they disagree, and its subject was “dear papa.” By a sort of intuition the boy must have, even in those early days, come to regard the handsome, bluff, genial, loud-voiced surgeon with something akin to suspicion, a suspicion which was maintained and fully justified in the years to come.
FOOTNOTES:[1]Then also Dean of Exeter and, subsequently, Bishop of that Diocese.[2]Derived from the situation of the Castle keep, which lies between the fords of the river Wansbeck, Northumberland.[3]Many years afterwards, when appointed to the See of Winchester, the late Bishop Thorold alluded to it as one of a number of Town-Villages which he said he found so peculiarly distinctive a feature of Hampshire.
[1]Then also Dean of Exeter and, subsequently, Bishop of that Diocese.
[1]Then also Dean of Exeter and, subsequently, Bishop of that Diocese.
[2]Derived from the situation of the Castle keep, which lies between the fords of the river Wansbeck, Northumberland.
[2]Derived from the situation of the Castle keep, which lies between the fords of the river Wansbeck, Northumberland.
[3]Many years afterwards, when appointed to the See of Winchester, the late Bishop Thorold alluded to it as one of a number of Town-Villages which he said he found so peculiarly distinctive a feature of Hampshire.
[3]Many years afterwards, when appointed to the See of Winchester, the late Bishop Thorold alluded to it as one of a number of Town-Villages which he said he found so peculiarly distinctive a feature of Hampshire.